This research illuminates the experiences of teachers and school leaders in three pilot schools enacting a new Junior Cycle (JC) curriculum prior to national roll-out. This new curriculum would place ‘students at the centre of the educational experience, enabling them to actively participate in their communities and society and to be resourceful and confident learners in all aspects and stages of their lives’ (NCCA, 2011). This reform, recognised by many as the most significant in the history of Irish education, proposes a student-centered curriculum framework intended to change teachers’ practice, promote equity and prepare students for the 21st century (Sinnema and Aitken, 2013). The Framework for Junior Cycle (2012, revised 2015) advocates the approach of formative and summative assessment driving student learning. It promotes development of student knowledge and skills through a diverse, outcomes based curriculum design. The Framework promotes student ‘Wellbeing’, with time ring-fenced for this curricular area. Teachers were to be involved in the assessment process in ways that heretofore did not exist in lower secondary education, as it was planned for them to assess student work for state certification. This, and other aspects of the Framework, were not enacted in the manner intended. The reform has been marked by slow introduction, fragmentation and high levels of contestation from teacher unions. A long period of mediation between the Department of Education and teacher unions resulted in a significant re-writing of the Framework in 2015. This research focused on the complexities of reform through the lens of context. The research followed a grounded theory methodology. Insights were gained, through interview, regarding the influence of school and system contexts on actors’ interpretations of JC reform and its translation into practice. A context-centric model is proposed, which offers insights to how management of context can support a shared meaning of the purpose of curriculum between school and system levels. This study offers a response to the dearth of contextualised policy responses in the change literature (Thrupp & Lupton, 2006, p.317). It looks to move beyond the truism that ‘context matters’ in curriculum policy enactment through illuminating what contexts matter, how they matter and why. This research presents, and expands upon, statements regarding why context matters for schools, for policy analysis and for system level governance. Context, in this regard, is not bleached into the background of the curriculum landscape, but is an active force through which we understand and mediate change.

NCCA (2011). Towards a framework for Junior Cycle: Innovation and identity. Dublin: National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. Sinnema, C. & Aitken, G. (2013). Emerging international trends in curriculum. In: Priestley, M. & Biesta, G. (2013). Reinventing the curriculum: New Trends in Curriculum Policy and Practice. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 141-163. Thrupp, M. & Lupton, R. (2006) Taking school contexts more seriously: The social justice challenge. British Journal of Educational Studies, 54(3), pp. 308-328.